Bone Orchards and Potatoes

Interfaith Celebration Gathering

Used in jest, ‘bone orchards’ is a term used to describe cemeteries, where many bones are planted, but none grow. For people whose loved ones have been laid to rest in cemeteries, the term probably seems quite derogatory.

As a society, we have been taught to think of the body as something really important. How we look even determines how other people treat us. If we are ragged and unkempt, people shun us. If we are ugly by society’s standards, people avoid us, shun us, and even make fun of us.

In our present day culture, beauty is promoted at all costs. Anorexia and bulimia are rampant, and the sales of diet products far outweigh the sales of supplements. We see our bodies as an integral part of who we are. So we perfume them, paint them and dress them according to what style dictates. When they age, we have them nipped, tucked, and lipo-sucked. In many instances our entire self esteem is based on how our bodies look. We are ever-striving for the perfection that continually eludes us.

Yet, our bodies are merely the shell that houses the important part of who we are. Like a sack of potatoes, our bodies house the nourishing parts of who we are. On our journey through Schoolhouse Earth, we need to learn how truly unimportant our bodies really are. The only time our bodies really contribute to our lessons on Schoolhouse Earth is when they malfunction, for it is then that we learn some of our most valuable lessons.

And as the bag that holds the potatoes is thrown away when the potatoes have been used to nourish others, our bodies need to be cast away when we no longer inhabit them. Our bodies are not who we are. They are simply a vehicle for the earthly journey of our souls.

While we reside in these bodies, we need to nourish them well, keep them clean, dress them according to the weather, rest them when they are tired, and then forget about them. They are not who we are. Who we really are an experiential extension of God. Once we learn who we are, it is our job to then learn how to let God shine through us to others who have temporarily forgotten who they are.

People who do not understand that who they are is an extension of God’s light and love search for their identity in material possessions, in drugs and addictions, in thrill-seeking behavior, and in money and power. But none of these earthly pursuits offers them happiness and peace because the only true happiness and peace comes from finding our true identity.

There is a tale that is told of God’s creation of humans when God was trying to figure out where to hide mankind’s divine connection to God. God wanted to put it where humans would have to search for it and learn lessons in the course of their searching. One angel suggested hiding it in the depths of the seas since it would take humans years to learn how to go to the bottom of the seas. Another angel countered with the suggestion that it be hidden on mountaintops since humans by nature seek the easiest course and would not be likely to climb a mountain seeking a divine connection to God. A third angel spoke up and suggested that mankind’s divine connection to God be hidden within each person since that is the last place anyone would think to search for it.

God liked that suggestion, and so it was that mankind’s divine connection to God was placed within each human, and humans have searched outside themselves ever since for their true identity.

We need to learn to find our own divine connection to God. It is within us, and it is the most powerful way we have of relating to each other that we can ever use. Once we find our true identities, we will learn that it is the potatoes that are important, not the sack that carries and holds them. The sack can be tossed in the garbage or buried in a Bone Orchard when we are finished with the potatoes, for the true essence of our being as an extension of God lives on, neither in the sack nor in the potatoes.

May God add a blessing to these humble words.

AMEN